Family Returns Soldier's Dog Sold by Girlfriend While Deployed

A family who bought a dog through an ad on Craigslist just gave the animal back to a recently returned soldier after finding out that the soldier’s girlfriend sold the dog without his permission while he was deployed overseas.

When US Army soldier Robert Gabbert was overseas fighting for our country, his girlfriend sold his beloved dog, Baxter, in a fit of anger as the pair carried on a long-distance argument.

Gabbert had left his 3-year-old Shiba Inu with his girlfriend when he was deployed to Afghanistan. But it wasn’t long before she began to complain that she couldn’t properly care for the dog.

Eventually she sold the dog without telling her (now ex) boy friend what she was doing.

Once the soldier returned home to his station at Fort Carson, Colorado, and discovered the deception he launched an effort to find who bought the dog with his own ads on Craigslist as well as a page on Facebook entitled “Bring Baxter Home.”

Gabbert raised the dog from a pup and his Facebook page is filled with photos of the soldier and his beloved dog.

The family who bought the dog was soon identified, but initially they insisted that they bought the dog in good faith and felt no obligation to return the dog. The new owners also said that their children had become attached to the dog, so they were reluctant to give the dog back to the soldier.

After entreaties from Gabbert’s supporters, though, the family relented and decided to give the dog back to the heartsick soldier.

“I think the people that bought the dog and read the stories and felt bad,” Gabbert’s father told the MailOnline.

The soldier’s father also pledged to send the family the money they paid for the dog so that they might have the funds for a replacement for their children.

“I do feel bad for them. They bought him and didn’t know that he wasn’t hers to sell. The kids should have a dog,” the soldier’s father said.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com